Livio Pellizzoni

Animal studies suggest that spinal muscular atrophy may result primarily from motor circuit dysfunction, not motor neuron or muscle cell dysfunction, as is commonly thought

posted on October 17, 2012 - 12:31pm

Results from a study in fruit flies conducted by scientists in the Motor Neuron Center at Columbia University Medical Center in New York suggest that spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) — commonly thought to be a disease of muscle-controlling nerve cells called motor neurons — instead results from the dysfunction of motor circuits (networks made up of different types of specialized neurons that...